ST. PAUL — It had been a while since Team USA suffered a regulation loss in group play at the World Junior Championships.
It didn’t happen last year, or the year before that. You have to go all the way back to Dec. 28, 2022, when the U.S. fell 6-3 against Slovakia in Avenir Center in Montcon, New Brunswick.
The Americans were 11-1-1-0 in pool play since then, with the only blemish being a 4-3 overtime loss against Finland a year ago in Ottawa.
But the Swedes weren’t bothered by Team USA’s dominant run before the medal rounds, winning the final pool play game at Grand Casino Arena in St. Paul 6-3 and claiming the top seed in Group A.
“We showed that we are a better team,” said Swedish forward Ivar Stenberg, who is one of the top 2026 draft prospects. “This game (against the U.S.) is always good. … We’ve been talking a lot about the game two years ago. It was really nice to shut down their arena.”
Team USA’s defeat comes as a fork-in-the-road moment for returners like Boston College sophomore Teddy Stiga, who was part of the U.S. group that overcame the OT loss to Finland en route to gold a year ago.
“In a way, it’s a good thing to get that loss out of the way,” Stiga said. “We’re going to have to beat every team over there. … We’re going to definitely have to go over some things. We came out hot, but overall, I don’t think we were bought in enough. We had shifts where we were going and shifts where we weren’t.
Joe Ahlquist / Post Bulletin
“Every goal they had was a bad play by us. We just need to clean a few things up.”
It was the first game between the U.S. and Sweden since they met with gold on the line at the 2024 tournament. The Americans won their first of two consecutive World Junior Championships on Sweden’s soil in Gothenburg.
“We’ve liked everything about this group,” Team USA coach Bob Motzko said. “We like how tight they are. We’re going to have to really rely on that. This is a crazy tournament. You have to park it quick and get on to the next game, and get momentum back. That’s quite simply what we have to do.”
Sweden’s four-goal second period was too much for Team USA to overcome.
Already leading 1-0, Eddie Genborg scored on the power play before Lucas Pettersson made it 3-0.
After Chase Reid got one back for the U.S. on the power play, Pettersson and Genborg each scored again. Pettersson sniped a shorthanded goal before Genborg made it 5-1 on the man-advantage.
“We took a lot of undisciplined penalties and they just got the better of us 5-on-5,” Reid said. “They played with more speed and executed better on their special teams. That’s why they won, but we’ll be better next time.”
North Dakota freshman
his fifth goal in four games, which leads all U.S players and is tied with Slovakia’s Tomas Chrenko for the most in the tournament.
Teddy Stiga added a power-play goal to start the third period, giving the Americans some life. The boost was short-lived, though, after a pair of U.S. penalties 16 seconds apart.
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Luke Osburn went to the box for delay of game, then AJ Spellacy was whistled for an illegal hit to the head.
The U.S. was 18 seconds away from killing the near-two-minute 5-on-3 before Stenberg scored his second WJC goal.
“We have two good (units) that can score,” Stenberg said. “We have really good chemistry on our team. I think when you have two good (units), you have to compete against each other to score. It’s a little bit (competitive).”
Sweden scored three power-play goals and is 9-for-18 (50%) on the man-advantage through four WJC games.
“It’s just the guys they have on their units,” Reid said. “They’re very skilled and very good puck-movers. If you have both of those on your power play, you can pretty much score goals every time.”
The U.S. could’ve — and probably should’ve — built a multi-goal lead before the game’s first goal actually came.
Sweden had three juvenile turnovers in front of its net before the first media timeout. It led to L.J. Mooney hitting the post with goaltender Love Harenstam out of position and Ryker Lee being robbed by Harenstam on a half-breakaway.
Instead, the Swedes were on the board first when Casper Juustovaara banked a pass in off of defender Logan Hensler’s skate and past goaltender Brady Knowling 9:17 into the opening period.
“We had all the momentum at the start,” Stiga said. “Unlucky goal to get (Sweden) going, and then we were just dead. Can’t let that happen. We lost all of our jump and our bite. We let them dominate the game.”
Joe Ahlquist / Post Bulletin
Sweden took the one-goal lead into the first intermission.
“The energy we came out with and the mindset we wanted to play with was right there,” Motzko said. “It was spot on. Unfortunately, the one bounces off our skate and, you know, then we make a couple of mistakes and we’re chasing the game. The crowd was incredible. We got them back into it a couple of times, and they were there for us, but Sweden capitalized on our mistakes. We chased the game, and we can’t do that. We have to clean that up.”
At the pre-tournament camp in Duluth, Motzko said he could see the U.S. using all three goalies in tournament play. On Wednesday, that came to fruition.
Knowling, a 17-year-old draft-eligible goalie at the USA Hockey National Player Development Program, got his first start. He stopped 23 of the 28 shots he faced. He was relieved by Nick Kempf at the start of the third period, who stopped 14 of 15 shots.
“Kempf played great for us. So did Knowls. Those goals are all on us,” Stiga said. “That first shot (Kempf) had in the corner kind of got him in the game. It was a good save. He was kicking for us. We’re going to need him to be good down the line.”
Motzko said star defenseman Cole Hutson is likely to return to the lineup before the WJC ends. Forward Max Plante is doubtful to return.
Team USA finished pool play with a record of 3-0-0-1 and is back at GCA at 5 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 2, for the quarterfinals. The Americans will either play Finland in a rematch from the gold medal game from a year ago.
“Heavily,” Motzko said on how much the U.S. will lean on WJC returners from a year ago. “We got (James) Hagens going. (Brodie) Ziemer continues to stay on. We’ve got some guys who are finding their game offensively when we need it.
“We were going to have a game where we needed to get it out of our system. I’d sure rather have it happen right now because the real tournament starts on Friday.”
Joe Ahlquist / Post Bulletin
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